Devices to be inflated such as medical grade air mattresses are useful for bedridden patients to relieve local stress concentration caused by lying and prevent bedsores. Air mattresses can be inflated when in use, and gas therein can be released in emergency conditions or when the mattresses are not in use to facilitate patient rescue or mattress storage.
Conventional inflation/deflation apparatuses for a device to be inflated such as air mattress generally comprise a gas supplier and a gas communication device. The gas supplier comprises an air pump allowing inflation/deflation mode setting, and the gas communication device is connected between the air mattress and the gas supplier to establish gas communication between the gas supplier and the mattress main body, so as to perform inflation or deflation of the device to be inflated.
In order to rapidly deflate the air mattress in emergency conditions, some conventional gas communication devices are configured with a gas discharge hole communicated with the gas discharge pipeline. The gas discharge hole is usually blocked and sealed by a plug or a sealing switch member. After a user remove the plug or switch on the sealing switch member, the gas discharge pipeline is opened to allow removal of gas in the air mattress from the gas discharge hole. However, because most gas communication devices are arranged adjacent to the air mattress for convenient operation, once the patient unintentionally actuates the plug on the gas discharge hole or the sealing switch member, the plug might be removed or the sealing switch member might be switched on, which undesirably results in the deflation of the air mattress and affects the lying comfort of the patient or even threatens his/her personal safety. Therefore, improvements are needed for the sealing configuration of gas discharge holes of conventional gas communication devices.